For the purpose of detecting a defect in an electrode of a board used in a liquid crystal panel, there has heretofore been employed a process comprising the steps of driving (charging) all liquid crystal pixels after assembling a liquid crystal panel, discharging each electric charge in the pixels, passing the resulting discharge current through a resistance provided outside the liquid crystal panel, and detecting voltage drop across the resistance.
However, this conventional process of inspecting a liquid crystal panel has not been available for inspecting a 50-μm level circuit pattern with sufficiently high resolution. Even for a liquid crystal panel having a relatively large electrode, the conventional technique has not been able to go so far as to detect the shape of the electrode. Further, the work sequence of carrying out the inspection after assembling a liquid crystal panel can cause lowered productivity in connection with defective products to be possibly identified by the inspection, and has caused the complexity in an operation for setting an inspection apparatus to the assembled liquid crystal panel.
In order to solve the above problems of the prior art, it is an object of the present invention to provide an inspection apparatus and inspection method capable of inspecting the shape of a board used in a liquid crystal panel with high fineness and efficiency.